A mummy's journey

Penang 2014 – Part 2, Georgetown

The next day, we headed into Georgetown again to go to the Made in Penang – Penang Interactive Museum. This time our minibus cost us MYR60/hr, no idea why, but we were happy to have it! I have not been to the Trick Eye Museum or the Alive Museum, so I have no idea how this compares, but it wasn’t too bad, although I wouldn’t say it’s a must do in Penang. Or maybe because my kids aren’t used to hamming it up for the camera, so I had a hard time getting to pose.

Son, your mum is getting eaten alive. Put your back into it!!

2 kids and I are battling this fierce dragon! In real life that fierce dragon would probably be me. Seriously.

Monkeys.

We headed to Wang Jiao Jun for lunch and I really love their tom yam fish soup. The kids loved the other dishes, the fried tofu, etc. After that we walked across to the Lorong Selamat char kway teow, which is over-rated IMHO.

Penang Wong Chau Jin restaurant. See that banner there? Everything on it is good!

The bittergourd, and in the background is the tom-yam-ish signature dish at Wong Chau Jin

The famous lady with the red hat fried up this Lorong Selamat Penang CKT.

Then we had one last stop at the Penang Chendol again (OCD right?), before heading to Kidland in Prangin Mall. I have not been to any Kidzania or Baby Boss or similar, only Eday town in Shanghai, so again I don’t have much to compare, but I think this place is pretty poorly run as well as run down. First of all, they have signage written on what looks like white boards they bought from Daiso or even cheaper. I know that’s not very relevant, but it’s my job hazard, I died a little seeing that.

Ma’am! Yes, Ma’am!Pilot in training.

We started off with Abacus doing flight training, while the boys went for a music class. Then Abacus joined them, and since he was “late” the boy teacher (they all look like they are just out of high school, or maybe they’re even holiday jobs), commented “You’re late for class!” and later he was given a pink ukelele when there were other colour options available, and the teacher and my 2 nephews and Mittens were having a laugh at Abacus when I peeped into the room. They were the only kids there, so I gave them a piece of my mind using my best mummy voice, and I hope the teacher felt bad too. I asked Abacus if he wanted to continue, but of course he didn’t, and I removed Abacus from the class. He only tried an origami class after that, with 2 boy-teachers who seemed much better, but for the rest of the time we spent playing at Babyland with Scout. It’s a 5-storey (or tier?) indoor play area inside Kidland, which was probably the best thing about the place.

Check out the height of this thing!

Scout really enjoyed herself

Later on the older boys tried a firefighter class, which seemed quite fun, but afterward, my eldest nephew complained to my SIL that it “waste money one”. One of the adult teachers overheard, and gave him a real scolding, saying that it hurt her feelings when he said that. My SIL waited to let her have her piece (and also didn’t want to interfere right from the start), but explained to her nicely that the nephew had meant that you couldn’t earn money being a firefighter, as opposed to other occupations where you could. The lady was still not happy and continued her rant. I walked over only just as the lady stormed off, but it was the same lady I had noticed earlier on shouting at the kids, which my SIL had previously noticed too.

So, sad to say, I wouldn’t recommend Kidland to anyone unless you have really nothing to do, or the kids want to play at Babyland. We were there on a weekend and it was hardly packed, so I think that probably speaks for itself. I think the kids could have probably spent 3-4 hours there, but the place is nowhere near as impressive as Eday, which even has a kiwi “farm” branded by Zespri leh!!

While we were at Kidland, the driver brought the other adults shopping for local Penang biscuits. For dinner we went to Mama’s, which has a kind of Ivin’s home style feel to it. But it is DAMN. GOOD. Even though I have been there twice, I have no decent photos to show, because I am always SO YAO GUI (greedy).

The next day we spent hanging around the hotel pool, and in the evening, based on the driver’s recommendation, we went to Sea Pearl Seafood. I was not impressed with ANY of the food there, and left with a queasy tummy. I was very disappointed that we wasted a meal on crappy food. One of my BILs even had diarrhea, but he didn’t mind detoxing a bit after so much eating, haha!! Unsatisfied, the husband got the driver to stop at Sunshine Bay Seafood on the way back, which is where we should have gone in th first place based on my cousin’s husband recommendation, because he is such a foodie. The assam prawns (I think it is “spicy/curry prawns done 2 ways”) were fantastic! Bittergourd omelette not bad, and the kids loved the noodles fried in crab sauce. Lesson learnt – although our driver was lovely and very friendly, you need to be discerning with recommendations.

On our last day, we left with a heavy heart. We had so much fun and there was still so much to do! Penang Hill! Butterfly Park! So many more eating places! We had a 3pm flight and we arranged for the same driver to send us to the airport, stopping at Tesco along the way for us to stock up on some milk powder. He charged us MYR$150 for the trip (for 14 of us!), including the stop, which I thought is very reasonable. I also bought some school shoes for Mittens from Bata there. We had the KFC at the airport after checking in, and everyone thought it tastes better than at home. Or maybe it’s just much cheaper with the low MYR!!

The airport is pretty small, but they do have a few shops there and even a coffee place which looks interesting but I have never had the time to have a cuppa there.

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All views expressed here are my own, because, I'm just very opinionated. If you think I've stolen your idea, maybe it's just a case of great minds think alike? :) Any resemblance to other actual content, living or deceased, is entirely coincidental, and would be very freaky.